We came back from France last Sunday night, and arrived at the house a little past midnight Monday morning.

One of the bitches of traveling by plane, is the weight restrictions - in our case, 20kg of checked in luggage and 10kg of cabin luggage. Because the excess kilos cost an arm and a leg, we decided to send a lot of stuff by mail. Even by getting rid of about 25kg divided into four prepaid boxes, we were still quite close to the weight limit... One of the reasons for this might have been the four bottles of wine we had in each suitcase, but still...

We had a very good time in France, seeing members of Sylvain's family again, some after a one and a half year wait. The weather in Argelès wasn't as good as it could have been, but we still managed to go swimming and get a tan (and a slight sunburn...).

When we got to Evry and Sylvain's mom, we went to see the Chateau of Vaux le Vicomte, which supposedly inspired Louis XIV to build his Chateau at Versailles.

Monday afternoon, Sylvain's friends from Rennes came, and spent the night here, to be a bit closer to the airport. They got to see some of our life here, amongst other things, the house where we lived before, and where Sylvain works.

Wednesday (yesterday) afternoon, my dad and Anggun (the cat), arrived by train from the south of Norway. Anggun will stay with us for a few weeks, before we bring her with us back south. Dad returns to the south tomorrow afternoon, after which The vacation marathon, part 2 begins...

We have a few more additions to our schedule.

When we come back from Argelès, we will probably spend at least a couple of hours with Nico and Sophie, two friends of Sylvain’s from Rennes. They are visiting Sophie’s sister Hélène who has been in Oslo this past semester with the Erasmus exchange program. For those of my readers who speak French, Hélène’s blog can be found here. We will only have the one day to see each other, because they are going back to France two days after we come back.

Secondly, Sylvain’s dad is coming on a weekend visit the weekend after our return.

Thirdly, I have two friends coming from England for a long weekend in the end of June.

But before all this, I have to finish my semester. I have to hand in a second term paper in a little over a week, and an exam in the beginning of June. On Friday, we are having Sylvain’s boss and his wife over for dinner, and next week, we will also have electricians come fix our electrical system, and a locksmith to reinforce our locks.

I will also slowly begin the work for my Master’s thesis...

My (our) summer plans are falling into place.

Sylvain and I are spending ten days in France after I finish my exam in June. First, we are going to spend about a week with some of Sylvain’s aunt and uncle and grandmother in and near Argelès-sur-mer. The nearest airport is in Perpignan, and to get there, we will fly Norwegian from Gardermoen (Oslo) to Orly (Paris), and then with AirFrance to our destination. From there, we will rent a car to go the half an hour drive to Argelès.

During our time in the south of France, we will go wine hunting and swimming, and of course spend time with my newly "adopted" grandmother (I asked her if it was OK a while ago) and the others.

We will head north on the Friday, but will stop at Orly to go to Evry for the weekend to visit my "mother-in-law". She, in turn, will come visit us in Norway in July, after having taken in the fjords on the west coast.

I’ve also decided to volunteer at the Oslo Science Fiction Festival, which takes place on the Oslo university campus July 31st through August 3rd. I don’t know what my my responsibilities will be yet, but everything has become clearer after I attended a meeting yesterday with some of the people already involved.

From me:

• Silver cuff links I’d seen in London at Christmas, and just had to get him
• A travel organizer (TravelOrganizer Elegance at the bottom of the web page) in black leather. I was going to get him a black leather belt, too, but that’ll have to wait.
  

• skis, including
• boots (of course)
• poles/stocks (of course)
• Swedemount windbreaker trousers
• waxes for different temperatures
• gaiters, to avoid getting snow in our shoes and on the bottom of our pants
  

From his family:

A Lego building set for the Star Wars Imperial Star Destroyer. We’ve started building it, and you can follow our progress on Sylvain’s blog, the picture on the left updates whenever a new one is added.

We spent last weekend with Sylvain’s family. We ate a lot of VERY good food:

• Magret de canard (a thin piece of duck fillet) mixed with a salad made of pears, amongst other things
• Semolina cake filled with confised fruits
• Cheese fondue
  
• Chocolate cake
  

We also went to a restaurant for lunch on Sunday, where I had snails for my apatizers, confit de canard as an entrée (as did Sylvain) and a rasberry flavored cake for desert. 

I wasn't able to sleep right away, coming back to the hotel after seeing Avenue Q.

Before leaving the hotel to go to Piccadilly Circus, some suspicious noises and odors were emerging from a room across the hall from ours. That night, we were woken up at around 2am by the fire alarm. When we finally understood what was happening, we got dressed, and went downstairs. Sylvain overheard some staff members talking to the firemen, saying that the alarm had originated from our floor... Oh well...

The next morning, we checked out, left our luggage at the King's Cross station Left luggage service, and took the Tube down to Piccadilly Circus again to return to Forbidden Planet. There, we got the following books:

For Sylvain:

• The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster by Bobby Henderson
• A Fall of Moon Dust by Arthur C. Clarke 
  

• Sandworms of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson

• Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
• the Time Machine by H. G. Wells
• the Lathe of Heaven by Ursula le Guin (mentioned in the Jane Austen book club by Karen Joy Fowler)
  
• Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon
• The Sky's The Limit (a Star Trek anthology)
  

Before going to the bookstore, we went by a Subway sandwich shop to get our lunch. Unfortunately, they were out of my favorite bread (honey-something-or-other), but I got my favorite dressing (honey mustard).

After leaving the Forbidden Planet, we stopped at a Starbuck's for a coffee, and to give my back a little break after all the walking I'd done the past few days. The coffees we got were expensive, but still worth the money.

Before collecting our luggage and heading to the airport, we went to a couple of Sainsbury's supermarkets in search of English smelly cheese (Stilton and extra strong Cheddar) and salty Cheddar crackers.

At Heathrow, I (of course!) had to take a look in the bookstore, and came out with Persuasion by Jane Austen and There's No Place Like here by Cecilia Ahern. Again, I ask; WHEN AM I GOING TO READ ALL THIS?????????

I had been waiting for this moment for over a year, long before our failed attempt to go to London for our one-year-anniversary. I even thought the thought of my returning to London was cursed... silly me...

We had gotten quite good seats for the occasion, about 10 rows from the stage at the Noël Coward theater at the West End.

Before the show, we ate dinner at a Burger King on Piccadilly Circus (can you believe there aren't any BKs left in France? Apparently, they disappeared practically overnight), and got three scoops of ice cream each at a Häagen-Dazs ice cream take out counter for desert.

When we arrived at the theater, I couldn't help myself at the souvenir counter. I just had to get a "I'm not wearing underwear today" t-shirt and a "It sucks to be me" latte mug... Granted, it's only funny when you know the reference, but still...

I knew the songs inside and out, so I could concentrate more on the staging and the performances. There were some differences between the Broadway and the West End productions:

• In London, Gary Coleman is played by a man, because, apparently, the British won't understand the joke.
  
• Some lyrics have been changed, to fit a more "European/British" audience. Personally, I think the changes were unnecessary, but there it is... The British audience will be a bit puzzled when they listen to the cd they bought at the theater, because it's the OBS...

Besides this, I had a great time at the show,and so did Sylvain! I even saw the actor playing Gary in the street afterwards. I didn't stop him, though, because he seemed to be rushing off somewhere.

I was excited to spend an extra day in London with Sylvain after celebrating Christmas with his family.

Our hotel for the night is situated between King's Cross and Farringdon Tube stations. In the same road, there are two hotels of the same chain, Travel Lodge, and the web site's map is a little inaccurate. It's best to have a real London map on hand, just in case.

As fate would have it, we headed into the capital the day Christmas sales began. While walking around Piccadilly Circus, waiting for our evening entertainment to start, we happened upon the clothes store Hawes and Curtis, where they sell shirts, ties, accessories, etc, for both men and women.

I had been on the lookout for more casual shirts Sylvain could wear with the cuff links  I got him for his 28th birthday. I thought it kind of a shame he couldn't wear them more often... We ended up getting three shirts (one light purple, one light blue and one dark blue with thin vertical stripes in other colors) - 25£ each, and a three-for-the-price- of-two deal on two ties (one flashy purple one, and one blue with stripes) and a pair of plain silver cuff links.

We had also planned to go browse the Forbidden Planet, a store that specializes sci-fi and fantasy related reading materials and toys. The store was, however, closed when we went there on the 26th, or Boxing Day... Fortunately we had another day to go back...

Our flight to London did end up with a late departure, but this time a thick fog at our destination, and not our place of departure, was the main problem. But we made it!

After collecting our suitcase at terminal 3 of London Heathrow airport, we took the Underground and the Piccadilly line towards London center, although we got off well before that, at Boston Manor, which is  the sixth stop after leaving the airport area (lower left side of the map).

Sylvain’s sister lives with her boyfriend in the suburbian town of Brentford. His mother and brother arrived the day before we did, on the 22nd.

The Christmas meal was on Christmas eve: foie gras and bread as an appetizer, duck with cooked apples and chestnuts on the side as main course, and Christmas pudding for desert. All the dishes had a special wine to go with it... Yummy!

And after dinner: PRESENTS!

We also spent a day at the cliffs of Eastbourne, about two hours south of Brentford by car. It was good to see the sea again, but I was very happy to be wearing a windbreaker because it was needed!     

Sylvain and I are supposed to be going to London for the holidays to spend it with his family. At the end of the trip, we are going to try a second time to see the musical Avenue Q in the West End... We tried it a year ago for our 1-year anniversary, but the flight from Poitiers was canceled due to fog on the runway...

Because of our bad luck then, I’ve been keeping a close eye on the news these past few days and weeks to get an early head’s up if anything should come in the way. First bad sign came some days ago, when SAS Norway (Scandinavian Airlines System) warned about a strike amongst the employees, in the form of a slowdown of the work pace...

The second bad sign is the weather. People say you shouldn’t travel by plane anywhere during the winter time because the unpredictability of the weather. For a few days now, Oslo Airport Gardermoen, and other Norwegian airports, too, has had to cancel an postpone a lot of flights because fog on the runway, and variations in the temperatures in the air and on the surface, causing the planes’ engines to freeze up...

Because of the delays, people have been forced to sleep in the airport while waiting for news. The newspaper I’ve consulted in addition to the airport website all say that the passengers should show up in good time before the flight, but expect having to wait for a long time.

Our flight is on the 23rd, and should take off right before 8am CET. In any case, I think it’s best if we expect a long delay. Fortunately, we have all day to get there...

In the meantime, we could cross our fingers and hope that Mother Nature sorts out the weather situation. We can also curse the politicians for making a very bad choice for the location of Norway’s largest and busiest airport, although we can’t do much about it...

So, I saw Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (Svindlere med stil) Wednesday night. I was a bit anxious beforehand, because I’d seen it in New York a couple of years ago.

I’d seen a couple of interviews with the stars of the show, and that showed promise. They are all well-known here, so that helps for the promotion, etc, but also the fact that this is to be the last show for the Thalia theater on Château Neuf.

Anyways, I’d seen several musicals in Oslo before - My fair lady and Cabaret among others - so I knew there would be a few untranslatable cultural references here and there. All in all, I think the translator did a good job, especially with the opening song "Givin’ them what they want", and Freddy’s big solo "Great big stuff" (for which they kept the original title). "All about Ruprecht" was also hilarious!

The stage design was quite like the New York one, at least I think it was, because it’s been two years.

In any case, I really enjoyed the show!

... Scoundrels...

Last time I was in New York, end of May-beginning of June 2004, I hit Broadway (as usual :P). Before coming, I'd been browsing Broadway.com on a regular basis to check out new musicals (one of my passions), etc.

And it was then that I came over this (then) newly opened musical, adapted from the movie with the same name, and starring Michael Caine and Steve Martin. What also caught my attention, was the musical's leading men - John Lithgow (3rd rock from the sun) and Norbert Leo Butz.

I'd seen the latter from the second row in the Nederlander theater, in New York, in July 2000, in... RENT! At the time, he was replacing Manley Pope, who was on vacation from his role of Roger, and he made a real impression on me!

Anyway, to make a long story short, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels had been translated into Norwegian (but has kept the original score), and is currently playing at the Château Neuf theater, near the University of Oslo. I'm going to see it tomorrow night (Wednesday) with my mom... I'll tell you how it went later :D

When I was in Washington a few years ago, visiting family, I got my first taste of a Subway sandwich. I had briefly heard a reference to a "Meatball sub" in FRIENDS ( from Joey, of course) at some point, and, now, finally I got to taste one. I found a store near my friend's apartment in New York, too, and not long after, I eat my first Meatball sub :D...

When I started my commute from EIdsvoll, I noticed a SUBWAY sign on the entrance to a shopping mall which is "wall-to-wall" to Oslo sentralstasjon. And, yesterday, I found it! I ordered half a ham sandwich on wheat bread, with cucumbers, tomatoes and honey mustard dressing... Mmmm! Heaven!!!

I have been missing New York lately, and even though it's not the only place you can get the sandwiches, it's what I've associated with them...

The Eidsvoll railway station was the endpoint of Norway’s first set of rails, and put into use for the first time in 1854. When Gardermoen became Oslo’s main international airport (before there was Fornebu and Gardermoen airports), they built a new set of rail road tracks, for fast trains (flytoget) initially, between the airport and the capital. And with the new set of tracks, they had to build a new station at Eidsvoll, which opened in 1998.

The distance between Eidsvoll station and Oslo central station is 67.51km, or about about 42 miles.

It takes me between 15 and 20 minutes to walk the 1,8 kilometers (1.12 miles) from my house to the station.

Two trains go to Oslo every hour: one local and one intercity train. The local train leaves Eidsvoll every 24 minutes past the hour, and takes 51 minutes. It stops at Eidsvoll verk (where the Eidsvoll building is), Oslo Airport Gardermoen, Kløfta, Frogner and Lillestrøm before Oslo Central station.

The intercity leaves every 57 minutes past the hour, and arrives in Oslo 37 minutes later, after stopping at Gardermoen and Lillestrøm.

When I come to Oslo central station, I take the "T-bane" (subway, metro...) to Oslo University campus. It’s a four minute walk from the station hall to the subway, then 12-15 minutes subway ride to get from Oslo S to Blindern, which is the name of the main Oslo university campus. To get there, you have to catch either the 3 train toward Sognsvann, the 4 train towards Ringen or the 5 train towards Storo.

On a good day, when I take the Intercity train at 8:57am, and manage to catch the first subway from Oslo S, the 3 train at 9:47am, my travel time is about an hour, excluding the 15 minutes walk to the station.

If I don’t catch the 3, I have to wait over 10 minutes for the next (the 5) to arrive. In that case, I take the first train that arrives to Majorstua station, which is the crossing point for all the subway lines, and walk the rest of the way, 10-15 minutes, to campus.